System
Cuba intensifies fight against corruption
Cuba intensifies fight against corruption IANSBy Indo Asian News Service | IANS Havana, May 14 (IANS/EFE) Corruption and illegal activities in areas like fuel distribution are of great concern for the Cuban government, the official media reported here Monday. Those issues were analyzed at a meeting of the Council of Ministers held last Friday at [...] Continue reading
Cuba government minister reports on corruption in international deals and gas
Posted on Tuesday, 05.14.13 Cuba government minister reports on corruption in international deals and gas By Juan O. Tamayo jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com Cuban government officials must fight “a grand battle” against corruption in areas such as business deals with foreigners and the distribution of gasoline, according to an official news media report Monday. Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of [...] Continue reading
For a Sustainable Prosperity
For a Sustainable Prosperity / Reinaldo Escobar Posted on April 22, 2013 Two new words have been incorporated into the Newspeak of Cuban political officials and leaders: prosperous and sustainable. These “recent” adjectives are greatly used to describe the society they are trying to achieve or the socialism that is supposedly under construction. Both terms [...] Continue reading
Socialism: A Transition Stage Between Capitalism and… Capitalism
Socialism: A Transition Stage Between Capitalism and… Capitalism / Rebeca Monzo Posted on April 10, 2013 I was having a conversation recently at a friend's house about new private businesses, doctors being given permission to travel, the prices and shortages of food, and other issues currently affecting our Cuban planet. One of those present mentioned [...] Continue reading
Afro-Cuban author who complained of racism demoted
Posted on Friday, 04.05.13 Afro-Cuban author who complained of racism demoted By Juan O. Tamayo jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com A black Cuban author, Roberto Zurbano, whose scathing criticism of racism on the island was published in The New York Times last month, has been demoted from his top job at the government-controlled Casa de las Americas book publishers. [...] Continue reading
Degeneracy Among Cuban Military Officers/ Juan Juan Almeida
Degeneracy Among Cuban Military Officers/ Juan Juan Almeida Posted on March 9, 2013 Some official, unofficial and foreign media outlets have been subject to a certain government manipulation, serving as an echo chamber by focusing special attention on the fight against corruption, which seems to have the become the principal challenge facing the Cuban president. [...] Continue reading
What Fidel Taught Hugo Cuba defined Chávez’s career as much as Venezuela did
What Fidel Taught Hugo Cuba defined Chávez's career as much as Venezuela did BY FRANCISCO TORO Hugo Chávez died today in Venezuela at the age of 58, but his battle with a never-specified form of cancer was waged largely in a Cuban hospital—a telling detail, as Cuba loomed just as large in his political imagination [...] Continue reading
Sadistic, Extravagant and Kleptomaniac: General Gondin
Sadistic, Extravagant and Kleptomaniac: General Gondin / Juan Juan Almeida #Cuba Juan Juan Almeida, Translator: Unstated CarlosFernandezGondinWhen being "Papá's boy" I decided to break out of my bubble, I knew I would face criticisms and threats. But I never imagined that the wicked and fearful smile of Carlos Fernandez Gondin while I was cruelly expelled [...] Continue reading
Head of Cuban cigar factory Partagas allegedly arrested in Havana
Head of Cuban cigar factory Partagas allegedly arrested in Havana Posted November 07, 2012 by publisher Various bloggers are reporting that the head of the Partagas factory in Havana, Abel Exposito, was arrested last week. Since there is no official word from Cuban authorities, information contained in this article cannot be verified. The alleged charges [...] Continue reading
The Capos of State Administration
Cuba: The Capos of State Administration November 7, 2012 Yenisel Perez Rodriguez HAVANA TIMES — The consolidation of capos in Cuban state administration favors the maintenance of authoritarian order in the country. They are representatives of those highly conflictive contexts of the underground economy that reaches the whole of Cuban society. We are talking about [...] Continue reading
Violator and Ousted
Violator and Ousted / Luis Felipe Rojas Luis Felipe Rojas, Translator: Raul G. The whirlwind of corruption, the lack of ethics and the indiscipline have shaken the foundations of the police unit of San German, in Holguin. Another neighborhood bloodhound has been victim of its own bite, originally trained to demolish any form of human [...] Continue reading
If You Want to Talk About ‘Worms’
If You Want to Talk About 'Worms' October 20, 2012 Maria Matienzo Puerto HAVANA TIMES — Yesterday I had the botella (hitchhiking experience) of my life. I left my boss's house (she lives near the heavily trafficked corner of 23rd and 26th streets in the Vedado district), and proceeded to ask a Cubataxi driver for [...] Continue reading
Cuba Anxiously Eyes Venezuelan Election
Cuba Anxiously Eyes Venezuelan Election Ben Cohen | @BenCohenOpinion 10.01.2012 – 12:47 PM Over the last week, indications have emerged from Venezuela that the fourteen year rule of President Hugo Chavez may be coming to an end this Sunday, when voters will choose between El Comandante and his dynamic opposition rival, Henrique Capriles. There are [...] Continue reading
Corruption of a Political Elite
Corruption of a Political Elite September 26, 2012 Haroldo Dilla Alfonso* HAVANA TIMES — A few weeks ago, Cuban academic Esteban Morales returned to the same issue that in 2010 cost him his membership in the Communist Party, though he was reinstated in 2011. That issue: corruption. Morales raised the issue tactfully, with all due [...] Continue reading
Young Communist Union A Springboard to Power… and Corruption
Yoani Sanchez – Award-winning Cuban blogger Young Communist Union A Springboard to Power… and Corruption Posted: 09/26/2012 4:06 pm There was a time when Cuba devoted a great deal of attention to the first secretary of the Young Communists Union (UJC). Styled after the Soviet Komsomol, this organization provided cadres to the Party and even [...] Continue reading
Policeman, Policeman, Are You My Friend?
Policeman, Policeman, Are You My Friend? / Rebeca Monzo Rebeca Monzo, Translator: Unstated The other afternoon at home, talking with a friend, she was telling me, dying with laughter, that when she went to Central Park, a well-dressed man holding a little boy by the hand came almost alongside her. With us, she told me, [...] Continue reading
Not On Carbs Alone
Not On Carbs Alone / Fernando Damaso Fernando Damaso, Translator: Unstated Leafing through the pages of official Cuban publications in recent days, I see articles on the economy in which there are references to plans for the production of potatoes, malanga, yams, yucca, bananas, vegetables, produce and condiments. This is all great news since these [...] Continue reading
Getting Crowded ‘Under the Table’
Getting Crowded 'Under the Table' September 13, 2012 Osmel Almaguer HAVANA TIMES — Recently an article about the problems of education in Cuba caught my attention. The author, whose name escapes me at the moment, gave examples of how education here is undergoing a discreet and gradual process of privatization. They referred to the "little [...] Continue reading
A Subtle Form of Corruption
A Subtle Form of Corruption September 6, 2012 To my constant friends By Esteban Morales* (Published by Progreso Weekly) HAVANA TIMES – When in 2010 I wrote about corruption and what happened to me became general knowledge, it was inevitable that many people worried. Nobody ever understood how it was possible to take a political [...] Continue reading
Repeating Failure
Repeating Failure / Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado Rosa Maria Rodriguez Torrado, Translator: Unstated People tend to repeat actions and strategies that were successful, be it as individuals or as groups. Even governments, such as Cuba's, sometimes show little creativity and don't escape this facile practice of repeating and "taking hold" of well-used — and sometimes [...] Continue reading
Cuba squeezed by health care costs
Cuba squeezed by health care costs Cuba's health sector has had millions of dollars in budget cuts and tens of thousands of layoffs. The Associated Press HAVANA – Cuba's system of free medical care, long considered a birthright by its citizens and trumpeted as one of the communist government's great successes, is not immune to [...] Continue reading
Cuba campaign takes on ‘free’ health care
Posted on Saturday, 08.25.12 Cuba campaign takes on 'free' health care By PETER ORSI Associated Press HAVANA — Cuba's system of free medical care, long considered a birthright by its citizens and trumpeted as one of the communist government's great successes, is not immune to cutbacks under Raul Castro's drive for efficiency. The health sector [...] Continue reading
Cuba convicts 12 of corruption in nickel industry
Posted on Tuesday, 08.21.12 Cuba convicts 12 of corruption in nickel industry By PETER ORSI Associated Press HAVANA — A Cuban court has convicted a dozen people of corruption, including high-ranking government officials, an executive at a state-run nickel company and workers from a project operating under a Cuban-Canadian joint concern, official media announced Tuesday. [...] Continue reading
Anonymous
Anonymous / Yoani Sánchez Translator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez Someone threw a letter through the window of the principal's office, in a nylon bag with a stone inside. Rows and rows of cramped handwriting, restless, denouncing the diversion of resources in the dining room. There was a meticulous description of the "private" storeroom where the products [...] Continue reading
Honor Among Thieves
Honor Among Thieves August 9, 2012 Fernando Ravsberg HAVANA TIMES — The Ministry of Finance of Cuba has just given people the best news of 2012, at least with regard to ordinary Cuban citizens. It announced that it will standardize the prices of 100 commodities — from soap to chicken — that are sold in [...] Continue reading
The Presidency and Family
The Presidency and Family / Anddy Sierra Alvarez Anddy Sierra Alvarez, Translator: Maria Montoto The cases of corruption involving Cuban officials who served in Fidel Castro's regime are increasing. Or Raúl Castro is simply switching Fidel's men for his own. Raúl Castro replaced Fidel Castro on February 24, 2008 due to an illness that had [...] Continue reading